Our Blog
2019: A Year of Promise
Looking Back Thanks to 25 years of experience, we know one thing for sure: change can’t happen when we don’t work together. In 2018, we continued building new ways to conserve and protect California’s most vital resource – water. The challenge is a big one, but it’s not impossible. We’re moving the needle on multiple…
Sustainable Conservation: A Quarter-Century Strong
This year, we’ve been celebrating 25 years of our successful brand of environmental stewardship. That’s a quarter century of bringing Californians together across many divides: environment and economy, farmers and lawmakers, industry and citizens. We’ve done a lot over the two-plus decades we’ve worked to steward California’s land, air and water, and we’re proud of…
25th Anniversary: Eric Lee
Keeping California Leading Sustainable Conservation is celebrating 25 years of big wins for California’s environment and people, but we don’t do it alone. Our partners and staff keep our Golden State feeding and leading the nation every day by caring for the land that sustains us. We sat down with Eric Lee, our Analytics…
Dairy Summit Showcases Environmental Progress, Challenges
A Path Forward, Together Farmers, trade groups, state agencies, academics and Sustainable Conservation staff filled the sold-out, inaugural California Dairy Sustainability Summit in Sacramento last week to showcase how the Golden State’s dairy industry is moving the needle on sustainability. Critical issues like conserving water, protecting air quality and water, boosting renewable energy and reducing…
Lundberg Family Farms Receives 2018 CA Leopold Conservation Award
The votes have been tallied, and thanks to our esteemed panel of judges, we’re pleased to announce that this year’s California Leopold Conservation Award recipient is Lundberg Family Farms. Pioneering Excellence Begun in 1937, Lundberg Family Farms is a multi-generation organic rice farm and innovative rice products processor. The family’s proven commitment to sustainable farming…
Workshop Showcases Promise of Groundwater Recharge in Wine Country
Groundwater Recharge: Part of the Solution Something Californians can all agree on? We need to take a closer look at how we manage our water, and find new ways to be better prepared for dry times in our future. And, we need to do it together. Groundwater recharge isn’t an entirely new concept – in…
Proposition 3 Gets Our Vote
On November 6, Californians will go to the ballot box to vote on a raft of state propositions – 11 in total – from homelessness prevention, to improving children’s hospitals statewide, to establishing a permanent daylight savings time (that’s right, no more switching our clocks twice a year). One proposition in particular that’s important to…
San Francisco Chronicle Letter to Editor
Salmon photo courtesy of the National Marine Fisheries Service/Southwest Fisheries Science Center. Sustainable Conservation recently submitted a San Francisco Chronicle letter to the editor in response to its story, “Marin County ghost town cleared away to save Lagunitas Creek’s coho salmon.” We wanted to educate readers about the population and habitat struggles many of the state’s hundreds…
Meet the 2018 Leopold Conservation Award Finalists
When it comes to keeping California leading in conservation, you may be surprised to learn that landowners are key front-line defenders of the environment. Over 50% of all land in California is privately owned, and how people manage this land has a dramatic effect on our environment, from combatting climate change, to boosting clean…
Central Valley, Bay-Delta Restoration Gets Big Boost
California’s Bay-Delta is complex, and home to some of our most imperiled species and degraded waterways. There are many opportunities for habitat restoration and stakeholders and advocates are eager to do the work, but navigating the complex web of environmental regulations can be costly, and time-consuming. With significant new funding from bond measures and other…
Patrick Rutten, Restoration Champion, Receives Sustainable Conservation’s First Habitat Partnership Award
Photo: NMFS/Southwest Fisheries Science Center; Salmon Ecology Team Our Accelerating Restoration team is honored to present our first Habitat Restoration Partner Award to Patrick Rutten, long-time National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) leader and California restoration champion. Patrick Rutten’s exemplary 43-year career at NOAA showcases his exceptional dedication to species recovery in California. He’s served…
Meet the Central Coast Growers Building a Better Water Future
A Closed Loop In California’s Pajaro and Salinas Valleys, aquifers are it. With almost no surface water coming to the Central Coast from further upstream, the region depends entirely on dwindling groundwater. As local aquifer levels go down, the space left behind draws seawater into the fresh water supply. Nutrients from fertilizer also make their…